Psyked*

it’s easy once you know how.

Superscript and Subscript - with Actionscript*

Posted by James Cannings - 30/03/08 at 10:03:21 pm

*And a little bit of custom-font magic…

Although I do like writing lovely elegant code I’m also a big fan of ‘the cheap hack’! Here’s one I used last week to get round the age old problem of dynamic text boxes in Flash not supporting superscript and subscript. You need to do the following:
Continue reading Superscript and Subscript - with Actionscript*…

Custom character-set embedding in Flash

Posted by James Cannings - 25/03/08 at 11:03:11 pm

You know those lovely font embedding options?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could make your own character sets?

As great as the default options are (All, Uppercase, Lowercase, Numerals) the latter 3 combined don’t contain all of the visible characters - and the ‘All’ option embeds thousands of other useless characters. So how about this?
Continue reading Custom character-set embedding in Flash…

09/04/08 Flash Player security update

Posted by James - 16/03/08 at 08:03:47 pm

Upcoming flash player update? Uh oh…

Well, I’m all for continually updating and improving products, but in the case of Flash it’s a real problem when it interferes with backwards-compatability and certain methods of working. I am of course, referrring to the issues that were encountered with sIFR Flash links, caused by the Flash Player version 9.0.115 (kudos to Mark Wubben for explaining this to me) and also in more general terms to the introduction of a rigid security model with Flash Player 8.

While we’re always doing our best to code in the most secure, efficent ways - like for example, using the ExternalInterface class as opposed to communicating with javascript via getURL(javascript:) [1] - there’s situations where these techniques weren’t available at the time they were written, and these are going to be broken by the update.

Adobe’s solution?

If your content is using “javascript:” within the prohibited networking APIs, you will need to rewrite your content. Developers are encouraged to use the ExternalInterface class for JavaScript-to-ActionScript communication.

Rewrite your code?! That like, must be breaking some unwritten rule of versioning, surely? Files published under a different version shouldn’t be mercy to the whims of newer players - otherwise, what’s the point?

Thanks to UnitZeroOne for their article which tipped me off.

sIFR links not working?

Posted by James - 07/03/08 at 10:03:24 pm

Here’s a funny story. Well, maybe not funny. Or particulary interesting - just informative. Maybe.

So I’m using sIFR text on a clients’ website, which has always worked before - and the links stop working. There’s no real consistancy - the links work in Internet Explorer on my computer, but not in Firefox, like they used to. Both browsers use the same security settings, flash versions, javascript versions, but one works and the other doesn’t. Other people don’t have the links working at all, regardless of the browser - and this seems to only be a problem we noticed recently.

Well - a lot of investigating later - I find out that the revised sIFR version 3 works fine in all browsers. New code, or something like that. So we upgrade the code to version 3 (beta 2) and… well, it works - eventually.

sIFR 3 is shaping up to be the most comprehensive release yet - but for anyone thinking it’d be easy to upgrade, think again. You’re looking at quite a bit of work reconfiguring the javascript to fit the revised model, and the flash files also need republishing - all of which took several hours.

Anyway, it’s late - but I thought the sIFR 3 project deserved a quick mention.

Find the sIFR 3 Project here.

Read more about sIFR in general, here. 

Work in progress…

Posted by James - 10/02/08 at 02:02:17 am

I decided to give my old uni project an overhaul, and to that effect I’ve been putting in a few hours work to convert the old project to Actionscript 2, and take advantage of the newer features of Flash. Aside from incorporating or replacing elements of the original code with classes, I’ve also made a few improvements on the visuals, and stripped out the player interaction in order to concentrate more on what interests me most - the AI ’simulation’.

Give me a few more [weeks worth of] evenings and I think I’ll have a far more exciting display, but for the meantime; Continue reading Work in progress……

I found one of my old uni projects…

Posted by James - 05/02/08 at 12:02:04 am

Submitted on 02/12/2005, this is pretty much my first attempt at full-on Actionscript programming. When the project started, I was having to look up things like ‘functions’ on Google to see what all those forums were talking about. This was definately my biggest step into the murky waters of flash programming, and one I’m pleased I took. 1189 lines of Actionscript later, and I had my (considerably adjusted from the inital spec) prototype. Continue reading I found one of my old uni projects……

Flash Player - set to include HD Video

Posted by James - 23/08/07 at 10:08:08 pm

Adobe has recently released the Beta of its’ next major update to the Flash Player - on Abobe Labs - and this time with HD Video support. (Amongst other general improvements) From a few other reports I’ve come across, the final version is expected in a couple of months, and of course other Flash-based products like Adobe Air will also benefit from the same technology.

Continue reading Flash Player - set to include HD Video…